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Post by kristine on Oct 26, 2009 16:12:23 GMT 1
It would be a shame to do away with freeze branding. Hot branding doesn't leave as distinct of a scar as freeze brand, but it works well for cattle who's hides are much thicker.
Its traumatic for horse, sure, BUT probably not as much as being stolen!
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Post by paulking on Oct 27, 2009 12:21:19 GMT 1
There will be some more coverage on the hot branding issue on BBC Breakfast television tomorrow morning.
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Post by portiabuzz on Oct 27, 2009 12:24:13 GMT 1
thats good, bring it to peoples attention!
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Post by paulking on Oct 27, 2009 13:05:53 GMT 1
We've put a bit about our conservation grazing ponies on our blogger - you can google us - people4ponies.
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Post by SarahW on Oct 28, 2009 9:51:18 GMT 1
Galling as it maybe, it isn't the branding itself that seems to cause the mental trauma in these ponies. I don't like hot branding at all but I have seen it done to tame ponies and they hardly flinch. I totally accept that there must be pain involved and that it is more pain than a microchip being inserted. Whether it is more than a freeze-brand, I just don't know. We can't avoid the fact that freezebranding does hurt and so does microchipping but not as much.
I suspect that these ponies will be just as trumatised without the branding given that they still get manhandled, have headcollars forced on them and then they are tied up to something solid even for inspection. Exmoor foals have to meet strict breed specifications and are allowed almost no white hair on their bodies. The inspection entails someone looking them over very carefully and, picking up everyone of their feet. Can you imagine how terrifying that must be to a wild foal? God, mother and instinct all tell them not to get caught up, not to stay with predators and not to get their feet trapped. They think that they are going to be eaten.
Until this procedure is delayed until AFTER a foal is tamed, this will always traumatise them. Not a problem if they are going to be turned back out onto the moor to be conservation grazers of to continue breeding but definitely a problem if they are going to domestic homes, especially if they go via the sales, where the same manhandling is absolutely normal.
There's a long way to go until the first humans that these people meet really understand the need for gentle and ethical handling and it's impact on the pony's minds. Instead of setting them up for success, it can ruin them for ever, make them far less attractive buyers and make it more likely that they will end up going for meat or continue being sold on.
In my experience, a pony that has been manhandled is usually about ten times more tricky to train than one that has not been handled at all.
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Post by jackiechurchill on Oct 28, 2009 10:20:36 GMT 1
Galling as it maybe, it isn't the branding itself that seems to cause the mental trauma in these ponies. I don't like hot branding at all but I have seen it done to tame ponies and they hardly flinch. Very interesting points Sarah and I do agree about the handling. However in my experiences of brandings the more handled ponies react more to the brands...not less. Especially by the time the third set of branding numbers comes and they have clocked onto what is happening. For those that don't know Exmoors have at least THREE sets of brands applied, sometimes more. It is important for the future of the ponies to be inspected.....less so to have a brand applied that in my experience cannot be read in at least 1/3 of cases and that cannot be read at all in winter coat. The BBC report didn't address the issue of branding domestic ponies. Ponies that will never need to be identified from a distance. Nor does it address how Exmoor Ponies are identified during the long winter months when their coats are too long to brand. Interestingly at 6.50am this morning the report started with the reporter stating that they couldn't show the brands as the ponies were facing the wrong way! Sadly this time there was no mention of the calls by the BEVA and BVA for hot branding to be ceased immediately.
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Post by SarahW on Oct 28, 2009 10:27:00 GMT 1
Jackie - that would explain the difference because the New Forest ponies I see being branded are generally only branded once.
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Post by paulking on Oct 28, 2009 13:00:14 GMT 1
Sarah, you said - (branding is) "Not a problem if they are going to be turned back out onto the moor to be conservation grazers or to continue breeding " - but we see huge problems with this - this summer we have been dealing with Exmoor ponies who have been conservation grazing for years and were originally part of a breeding group.
The mares that we have had so far were not only very frightened but two had seriously overgrown feet and two had very bad sweet itch i.e. open sores. The only unbranded mare came round to handle easily having (we believe) simply caught her fear from the others.
We have now been able to attend to all these the health issues without endangering life and limb and without further emotional trauma to the animals.
The mares that have continued to be handled are now easy to deal with. If they had been required to continue a semi-feral existence, we would have stopped our (positive) handling at the right point so that they retained the amount of wariness necessary in a wild pony.
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Post by SarahW on Oct 28, 2009 20:20:53 GMT 1
Perhaps I should have said "not such a problem". Once again though it's the handling even more than the branding that causes the problems. We need to change both. The foal in the video started being terrified as soon as those burly people start to capture and restrain it.
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Post by paulking on Oct 29, 2009 11:13:16 GMT 1
Yes Sarah absolutely; and ear cutting/tagging as well.
We have a little mare with us at the moment for handling - she has had the top cut off one ear and the other has a plastic tag in it. She is probably mid teens, extemely fearful and has been cared for for the past 3 years by a horse charity before coming to us 3 weeks ago. The pony has learnt to defend herself and is likely to be a long term rehab - however I am making slow progress and can approach (one side!) and touch her, but not on her head yet.
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Post by paulking on Oct 30, 2009 22:28:56 GMT 1
We've had our first negative email! We thought you might like to read it.
"I read the bit about your campaign against hot branding of Exmoor ponies in todays Telegraph (29th October). Hot branding V micro chip? An interesting debate. I have had both done. A few years ago I brought an Exmoor gelding from a pony sale that was not registered because it had failed its yearling inspection. This was before passports, so I had no real need to have it re-inspected, apart from the fact that it would make a half wild pony slightly more valuable if it was judged to be of breed standard. So the good folks from the Exmoor Pony Society came out - agreed that the parrot mouth that had precluded it from previous breed standard, had rectified itself as it had got older - so thought it was worthy of registration and branded it. The pony was in pain for all of two minutes, if that. he went on to be broken and won at County Show level, became quite valuable and was never at risk at being in any human inflicted pain again. Unless, you consider him going in a trailer, being clipped, or maybe doing something that he thought, as a pony, he would rather not be doing - i.e. doing anything other than eating grass? Then very recently the new micro-chipping law came in. My son had a nice pony, that was feral when he started with it - but was coming on really nicely, long reining, lunging etc. Along came a young inexperienced vet to micro-chip it. She embarked on a twenty minute process that terrified the animal and resulted in nothing happening! First she wanted to clip the hair where it was going to be MC - then she gave it a local aneasthetic - then finally she tired to put the MC in......The pony had gone bananas at the first stage - was twitched for the 2nd - knocked out my son who was holding it - and she retreated before the final intervention saying it was dangerous! She made the Exmoor Pony people with their hot irons look like commensurate professionals and the pony in question was set back about 3 weeks in his education! Next time we gave him a tube of sedlaine, and the vet came straight in and whacked the MC in. I am not sure what I can see that the difference is really........ I also find the title of your website rather paradoxical - people (for) ponies - should it not be ponies for people? I find your namby pamby attitude to this subject irritating in the extreme - sadly far more ponies end up in inexperienced hands these days and suffer far more neglect because of organisations like yours - where people go to the pony sales and end up with half wild ponies that they can do little with, but feel good for all of five minutes because they think that they have saved an animal. The ponies inevitably end up at Mr Potter's - instead of finding a role such as the aforementioned pony that I had did. I have two Exmoor ponies here - that were both right offs (having been to foster carers - who did not have the skills to care) I have found them a job conservation grazing. We do not throw ropes at them, or even try whispering to them.....we just send them to their grazing pastures - feed them some hard feed a few weeks before we need them home, herd them into a trailer - get them home, pop them in a filed, and do similar in 6 months time. For them life is brill!! OK their heart rates may go up for those few minutes that we drive them into a cattle trailer and transport them for 4 miles - about the same, if not less than being hot branded. Please get some perspective on this. Regards"
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Post by portiabuzz on Oct 30, 2009 22:36:21 GMT 1
didnt like the tone of this...also didnt quite get where they are coming from..
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Post by SarahW on Oct 31, 2009 13:42:34 GMT 1
It's hard to put your head above the parapet - there's a lot of people who will take pot shots at you! I feele exactly the same round here having published my book - and boy did I tone down what I really feel about some of the things that happen. It seems that you can't win whether you try to quietly change things from the inside or shout about it on the outside - if you are an outsider, you are an outsider and people will always shout "tradition!" at you; This is the way we have always done it and it works - even if it doesn't. One of the commoners around here is so proud of his brand that he has had it incorporated into the brick work of his stable block. It's huge.
Arabheaven taught me the expression cognitive dissonance which is apparently the discomfort you feel when you realise that something you have believed is not true. Much easier to close your mind and never experience that discomfort. Wouldn't we feel the same way if someone came up with an even quieter/ gentler way of handling semi-feral ponies which makes my feather duster and fabric method look like torture.
I know Simon and Garfunkel are not exactly fashionable but I love these lines:
"So you see I have come to doubt, All that I once held as true, I stand alone without beliefs, the only truth I know is you."
I think that works for me (where the horse is the truth) and for the semi-ferals we need to be the only truth that they know.
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Post by portiabuzz on Oct 31, 2009 15:01:42 GMT 1
lovely words Sarah x
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Post by jackiechurchill on Oct 31, 2009 15:26:21 GMT 1
Not helped by the media protraying the RSPCA as in favour of the procedure.....
....heres the reply I had from the RSPCA outlining their current policy
"Thank you for your enquiry about the hot branding of Exmoor ponies. As you will know, this subject has been recently highlighted in the media.
Since research shows that branding is a painful procedure, the RSPCA believes that it is unacceptable on welfare grounds and should be phased out as soon as possible.
The RSPCA is very supportive of permanent identification of all kept animals and, currently, advocates the microchip as its preferred method.
However, we do recognise that being able to identify moor-kept animals quickly and from a distance may be important in some situations in terms of protecting the welfare of individual animals that may be ill, injured or otherwise at risk.
As a result, we have been reviewing the husbandry and identification practices employed by those responsible for moor-kept horses, ponies and donkeys with specific reference to the ability of their owners to meet their legal duty of care as laid down by the Animal Welfare Act 2006. The Society's review will be published in Spring 2010.
Kind regards RSPCA Enquiries Service "
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